Research
Our lab aims at shedding light onto the cell biology of the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, by revealing the spatiotemporal organisation of these remarkable cells. B. bacteriovorus invades and proliferates inside the periplasm of other Gram-negative bacteria. The fascinating predatory cell cycle and the non-typical mode of growth and division of B. bacteriovorus raise fundamental biological questions that we tackle using a combination of bacterial genetics, live fluorescence microscopy with high spatio-temporal resolution, quantitative image analysis at the single-cell level, and biochemistry.
We are currently investigating the following aspects of B. bacteriovorus biology:
Our lab is funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (PREDATOR #802331), by an ARC grant (UCLouvain-UNamur), and by the F.R.S.-FNRS.
We are currently investigating the following aspects of B. bacteriovorus biology:
- How the chromosome is organised, copied multiple times and segregated during the non-binary cell cycle
- How cellular polarity is established and maintained in the predator progeny
- How predators grow and divide in a non-binary manner
- How predators and prey interact, and how the prey cell affects the predatory cell cycle
Our lab is funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (PREDATOR #802331), by an ARC grant (UCLouvain-UNamur), and by the F.R.S.-FNRS.
© Géraldine Laloux 2016 - Last updated on 07/13/2021